The “Charmed” Audience
Rebecca Feasey
The "Charmed" Audience:
Gender and the Politics of Contemporary Culture
Existing work on gender and the politics of television culture suggests that seemingly tough girls such as Emma Peel (The Avengers, 19611969), Jaime Sommers (The Bionic Woman, 1976-1978) and Jill Monroe (Charlie's Angels, 1976-1981) were less action chicks than they were powder puffs. After all, despite the seemingly active roles that these characters played from week to week, the strength, intellect and autonomy of these women was routinely undermined in a variety of ways, including marriage, male-rescue and masquerade.1 Moreover, these programs have been critiqued for emphasizing the surface appearance and sexual attractiveness of their stars as a way in which to diffuse the threat posed by second wave feminism.2 With these notions of feminism, feminine beauty and desirability in mind then, it is relevant to consider the ways in which representations of today's tough girls can be understood within a wider discussion of contemporary feminism.
Theorists such as Charlene Tung, Renny Christopher, Sarah Projansky and Leah R. Vande Berg have recently praised the representation of strong female characters such as secret agent Sydney Bristow (Alias, 2001- ), Officer Aeryn Sun (Farscape, 1999-2003) and Xena Warrior Princess (Xena: Warrior Princess, 1995-2001) for challenging earlier representations of beautiful, feminine and heterosexually desirable heroines.3 However, although contemporary theorists seem happy to applaud such shows for their characters' combination of intelligence and physical action, they seem reluctant to examine those protagonists who combine female strength and femininity.
With this in mind then, if one considers that the long-running Charmed (1998- ) series has been dubbed "Charlie's Angels with broomsticks" and "Charlie's Witches," respectively, it is interesting to consider the ways in which this contemporary text can be understood in a wider debate about female power, strength and surface appearance in the post-feminist period.4
I have previously suggested that a relationship exists between the women of Charmed and the politics of post-feminism, due to the fact that those ideas of power, sisterhood, style and desire that recur throughout recent work on contemporary feminism by Charlotte Brunsdon, Joanne Hollows, and Jacinda Read5 are the very same ideas that are routinely showcased in the Charmed universe.6 However, because this study was based solely on textual analysis, I was only able to theorize about the pleasures available to the viewer. With this in mind then, it is necessary to look at the reception of the text in question. Therefore, rather than focus on the ways in which the viewer could or should read Charmed as an empowering site of post-feminism, it is relevant to consider the audience as the author of meaning. After all, if one considers that "the popular media are never feeding their audience a single message about women's roles"7 and that a single text can offer countless different, if not altogether contradictory, messages for the female viewer, then it is worth noting the ways in which the Charmed viewer locates meanings and pleasures from the popular text in question. However, before I examine the ways in which Charmed
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Heather Osborne-Thompson, editor, Spectator 25:2 (Fall 2005): 39 - 48.
THE "CHARMED" AUDIENCE
becomes meaningful for its audience, it is necessary for me to give a brief overview of the program, its schedule and its target audience.
Charmed
Charmed is a glossy supernatural drama that explores the relationship between twentysomething sister witches, who, after finding out that they possess supernatural powers, are reluctantly thrown into a world of magic and a lifetime of sorcery. The eponymous "Charmed ones" are Prue, Piper, Phoebe and Paige Halliwell played by Shannon Doherty, Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan. Prue is the head-strong and highly-driven older sister who has stood in as the authority figure of the family since her mother's early death, the sister who has the ability to move objects with her mind, and the sister who gave up her steady job in an auction house to follow her dream as a freelance photographer. Piper is the highly-strung middle sister who has the ability to freeze time and the sister who changed the focus of her career from restaurant manager to club owner and became a single mother when her dream marriage to Leo Wyatt/Brian Krause, her guardian-angel-esque "whitelighter" ended in separation. Phoebe is the carefree younger sister of the original "Charmed ones" who has the powers of premonition, the empath and levitation, the sister who graduated as a psychology major before taking a high-profile job as an advice columnist, and the sister who falls in love with, marries and then vanquishes Cole Turner/Julian McMahon--a half-demon turned mortal lawyer. Paige is the long-lost half sister who joined the series in its fourth season to recreate the power of three after the character of Prue was written out of the series. Paige is a young, free and single caring social worker turned full-time witch who has the power of telekinesis and the ability to "orb" between planes.
Targeting the Charmed Audience
In terms of scheduling these modern multitasking witches for the viewing public, it is worth noting that the British cable and satellite channel LivingTV is currently showing early episodes of Charmed back to back every weekday afternoon, and airing the most recent series of the supernatural program on Thursday evenings. With this in mind, I would argue that the channel's dedication to this supernatural program provides evidence of a unique relationship between the target demographics of the channel and the target demographics of the program in question.8
According to Joanne Lacey's recent work on LivingTV, we are told that the channel provides programming to meet the needs of its core female audience.9 However, rather than simply trying to target all women, Lacey argues that the channel targets specific categories of what its marketing calls "modern" women. We are informed that these "modern" women would rather identify with the feisty television actor and late-night comedy presenter Liza Tarbuck than the maternal face of morning television, Lorraine Kelly, and, moreover, would rather watch Cold Feet (1998-2003), a quirky comedy about thirty-something couples than Heartbeat (1992- ), the gentle feel-good drama about a British police constable and his doctor wife. Similarly, we are informed that these "modern" women would rather dine at the trendy Pizza Express over the child-friendly Pizza Hut, and likewise that these same women would rather exercise at their local gym than count calories at their local Weight Watchers meeting.10 Although Lacey's work does not provide a detailed breakdown of the LivingTV audience in terms of age, class, ethnicity or income, what the research does provide is an attitudinal description of the target audience in question. And it is this physically fit and forward-thinking LivingTV viewer that is relevant to my ethnographic research for this particular paper.
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Examining the Charmed Audience
In order to explore the ways in which viewers create meaning from the Charmed universe, I wanted to recruit members of the program's audience for a small group discussion.11 With this in mind, I decided to enlist participants by an email request to both staff and students at Bath Spa University College. The email request was brief, asking the questions: 1) do you watch Charmed? 2) if so, would you like to take part in a short research project? Because prospective participants should be told what the purpose of the discussion group is, who the researchers are and what they represent,12 I included a short paragraph outlining the purpose of my research project and the participant's role in the research. My email request stated, "Although Charmed has become the focus of recent academic debate, theorists continue to overlook the ways in which this popular program is understood by its audience. Therefore, I would like to arrange a small discussion group with members of the Charmed audience in order to discover the meanings and pleasures on offer in this particular text. If you, or anyone that you know locally watch this program and would be happy to talk to me and other members of the Charmed audience, please contact me."
The responses that I received were in themselves rather telling in terms of a discussion
REBECCA FEASEY
of television's active heroines and the politics of contemporary popular culture. On more than one occasion male respondents nominated girlfriends and daughters for my discussion group. For example, one male stated, "I'm nominating my girlfriend to talk with you about Charmed--it's not my cup of tea, but she is a huge fan;" another suggested, "my daughter loves Charmed and will happily talk to you about it ... I vaguely watch it ... but what the hell do I know."13 Either way, it is clear that the potential male audience views the program as a popular cultural text not worthy of their popular or critical attention. Therefore, in order to locate an audience who would be happy to both think and talk about their viewing pleasures, it soon became clear that I would be focusing on a female audience. With this in mind then, I chose to hold a small discussion group with five female viewers who responded to my initial email. Rather than extend my search in order to access a broad range of respondents of differing ethnicity, class and age profiles, I decided that my initial research would be based on a small discussion group with a sample of Living TV's target viewer--namely white, "modern" women, ages twenty to twentyeight.14
At the outset of the discussion I outlined the purpose of the research, the reason for recording the session, the notion of anonymity, the right to withdraw from the proceedings, and, finally,
According to Joanne Lacey, Living TV's core female audience prefers Liza Tarbuck (left) Pizza Express (middle) and Cold Feet (right).
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THE "CHARMED" AUDIENCE
my role as the moderator. After asking each participant to introduce themselves, I asked them in very general terms "what they thought about the program" in order to give them the chance to define both the frame of reference and the language for the ensuing discussion.15
It soon became clear that the frame of reference for the discussion was gender specific, with the viewers pointing out the program's female-orientated nature. LivingTV makes it clear that its target audience is female, and likewise the Charmed viewers in my discussion group formed a consensus when they referred to Charmed as a female-defined program about "female defined issues."16 When I asked the group to tell me who they thought watched the show, I was told that "the audience is anyone female up to the age of about fifty ... with twenty to thirty as the core audience,"17 or what one respondent referred to as the "the uber-Charmed viewer."18
Charmed Company
I was particularly keen to find out about the viewing practices of the women in the discussion group, in terms of the company they kept while watching the program. The young women echoed their earlier sentiments concerning Charmed as a female-defined text as they informed me that watching the program was in fact a female-centered activity. One respondent stated that "if my mum is around ... she might sit down and watch it"19 while another said, "I ... watch it with my sister and my mum."20 Furthermore, one respondent stated that she has been known to watch the program with her phone to her ear while one of her relatives does the same: "I have a cousin who lives miles and miles away--and she's just recently got into the program ... and there have been evenings, where I have to confess, to having sat watching Charmed, phone to my ear [my cousin] at the other end of the phone, watching Charmed."21
The ways in which the Charmed viewers in my discussion group refer to watching the program as a female-centered activity echoes the sentiments of Living TV's Charmed forum. On the eve of a recent Charmed weekend marathon, one respondent wrote:
Well I have my weekend all set! I am chucking my hubby out of the house and sitting down with a huge bowl of popcorn and choccy.22
And likewise:
I found Charmed by accident one Saturday evening whilst channel hopping ... Now my daughters and I watch avidly, even the re-runs ... Anyway, my name is Jayne, I'm 44 my daughters are Lisa who is 23 and Laura who is 17. My cousin in Leeds is also a fan and named her 4-yearold daughter Piper!23
It is clear here that the focus group and the members of LivingTV's Charmed forum alike view the experience of watching Charmed as a specifically gendered activity that draws together female viewers and fosters a sense of sisterhood for the female audience. In this way, the focus on watching the program as a female "bonding experience" as one respondent put it24 can be seen to pick up on the theme of female camaraderie that runs throughout the text itself.
"...the secret of the charmed ones lies in their sisterhood"25
When I asked the discussion group to suggest what they considered to be at the heart of the long-running program, one participant made it clear that it was the bond between the three sister witches rather than the magic or sorcery that was the basis for her attraction to this particular text. After all, while each sister witch in the Charmed universe has her own special power, they become an unbeatable team when their powers are combined. As Participant #3 suggested, "the bond between the sisters ... defines the whole thing." Others stated that the program was about "the camaraderie between the girls" and "sisters doing it for themselves."26 More specifically, one respondent pointed to the ways in which each sister witch has, in turn, made an effort to leave the family home and live alone or with a partner, highlighting that in each and every case, without exception, the "Charmed ones" return to the
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REBECCA FEASEY
Aspirational and attainable fashion styles of Phoebe (Alyssa Milano), Piper (Holly Marie Combs) and Paige Halliwell (Rose McGowan).
Halliwell manor because "their family bond" is given priority.27
Similarly, members of LivingTV's Charmed forum pointed to the pleasures of female bonding in the program's universe. One respondent stated that sisterhood is:
between women acting collectively to support each other is one way in which feminist concerns have entered into mainstream popular forms.29
"...you can't go hunting demons in heels"30
a very important part of the show, without the bond between the sisters the power of three would not be as powerful as it is and it is interesting to see how their individual powers combine to create an unstoppable force for good against evil.28
With this in mind, one might suggest that this idea of sisterhood, or female camaraderie that is articulated by both my discussion group and members of LivingTV's Charmed forum could be understood as one of the ways in which the audience is able to make sense of debates concerning contemporary feminism and feminine identity. After all, the emphasis on a shared bond
If one considers that the emphasis on female bonding is one of the ways in which feminist concerns have entered into mainstream popular forms, then it is also relevant that the Charmed viewers point to the pleasures offered by the surface appearance of the sister witches in the program. After all, recent work on the politics of post-feminism can be seen to champion those women who are capable of combining female power, feminism and femininity through ideas of both sisterhood and style respectively.31
In her work on post-feminism and shopping films, Charlotte Brunsdon finds that contemporary feminism is enthusiastic about the pleasures of shopping and the power of consumption. She
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